Basilicata has everything it
needs to produce fine, ageworthy red wines and yet the region is rarely on the
radar of wine lovers, much less serious collectors. A little while ago, just around
the turn of the new century, some knockout Aglianico del Vulture wines promised
better things to come, but that momentum was not sustained and the area fell on
tough times, with numerous estates, restaurants and hotels closing shop. But after
languishing in the doldrums for a spell, Basilicata’s wine scene has perked up
considerably, thanks to an energetic new generation of winemakers taking over
their family domaines and a number of exciting new wineries now appearing on
the scene.

The Vulture and its easy to recognize seven peak summit

Yesterday’s News

Way back in my salad wine-drinking
days, two then virtually unknown wine regions of Italy clearly stood out for
their great red wine potential; one of those was the Vulture zone of Basilicata
(the other was Etna). While living in Rome in the 1980s, I used to buy and
drink wonderfully balanced and complex Aglianico del Vultures from the 1970s. More
often than not, I found these wines as good as many much more famous Chianti
Classicos and Brunellos made at the time (the Aglianicos were just a touch more
rustic). Producers such as Paternoster and D’Angelo were already making
excellent to outstanding wines.

Aglianicoa from the Vulture
have long enjoyed a strong reputation: local oldtimers often regale their
visitors with stories of how Vulture’s wines were sold off in bulk and transported
by train to more northern lands. Clearly, prior to climate change many anemic
red wines made farther to the north needed a boost, as the grapes used to make
them often failed to achieve full phenolic ripeness and adequate sugar levels. And
so the powerful, ripe Aglianicos being made down south were put to constructive
use, so to speak.

The renaissance of Italian wine
that took place across most of the country in the 1970s and ’80s gave
Basilicata and its wines their five minutes of fame, at least within Italy. By
the 1990s and the turn of the new century, many exciting new wineries had
emerged and an increasing number of very good, at times even outstanding, wines
were being made. Already well-known and established estates such as Paternoster
and D’Angelo had only gotten better, and new exciting wineries were springing
up all the time. Aglianicos such as Paternoster’s Don Anselmo and Rotondo and
Elena Fucci’s Titolo Aglianico del Vulture became prized by wine lovers all
over Italy. Add to this scenario a newly opened Michelin-starred restaurant in
the heart of the production zone, fine hotels and a slew of high-quality
artisanal gastronomic products (some of Italy’s best cheeses and salumi are made in Basilicata), and
things had never looked better for Basilicata’s Vulture wine country.

Unfortunately, the surge did
not endure. In less than a decade, the Michelin-starred restaurant (and hotel) in
Barile closed and was sold to Campania’s Feudi di San Gregorio, who also bought
the Basilisco estate. Macarico was sold to Gerardo Giuratrabochetti, owner of
Cantine del Notaio, who promptly sold off the vineyards (again, to Feudi). The D’Angelo
estate split up into two similarly named wineries, D’Angelo and Donato
D’Angelo. Il Nibbio Grigio and Basilium closed, and Paternoster has been
recently sold to Veneto’s Tommasi family of Amarone fame. The reasons for this
disaster are varied, including a lack of teamwork between producers (I
distinctly remember one producer telling me that he had never set foot in the
local Michelin-starred restaurant because he perceived it to be too close to
the Paternoster family, as it was owned by Vito Paternoster’s brother-in-law); an
overemphasis on Aglianico (very few estates made any white wine at all back
then); too many supposedly different Aglianico wines made at each winery that more
or less tasted alike; and a denominazione
that is too large and lumps together many very different terroirs (thereby denying the possibility of future growth, which
might have been made possible by the establishment of subzones that show area-specific
nuances and differences). Of course, there were also far too many new wines of dubious
quality—many of them plagued by bad oak, and often too much of it.

Vineyards and views at Terre degli Svevi

In With the New

Mercifully, things are now
looking up again for Basilicata, thanks to a general clean-up by a new
generation of winemakers and estates. Times may not be quite as giddy in the
Vulture as they were twenty years ago, but the local wine industry is now on
much sounder footing.

Basilicata’s wine scene has
always been dominated by one extremely large DOC, Aglianico del Vulture, and
one grape variety, Aglianico. There are small plantings of Moscato Bianco,
Fiano and Malvasia Bianca di Basilicata (a local and high-quality cultivar of
Malvasia that is different from the other 17 Malvasia-named varieties growing
in Italy), but until recently, and with few exceptions, there wasn’t much wine
being made with those three grapes. In an effort to create greater diversity
and broaden the region’s wine offerings, a new DOC called Matera was launched
in 2005. Matera Primitivo must contain at least 90% Primitivo, which is
understandable as this region is not far from Puglia. Matera Rosso is a blend
that must contain at least 60% Sangiovese and 30% Primitivo, while Matera Moro calls
for a minimum of 60% Cabernet Sauvignon, 20% Primitivo and 10% Merlot. (There
is also a Matera Moro Riserva category.) Among the white wines of this new DOC
are Matera Greco and Matera Bianco, the former made with at least 85% Greco and
the latter with a minimum of 85% Malvasia Bianca di Basilicata. A Matera Bianco
Passito sweet wine can also be made with at least 85% Malvasia Bianca di Basilicata.

In 2010, legislators decided to
tweak Aglianico del Vulture as well, adding the new DOCG categories of Aglianico
del Vulture Superiore and Aglianico del Vulture Superiore Riserva. The former
must be aged at least 12 months in oak and at least another 12 in bottle, and
can be released for sale only in the third year after the harvest, while the
latter must spend at least 24 months in oak and at least 24 more in bottle, and
cannot be released for sale prior to the fifth year after the harvest.

But the Best Intentions . . .

Obviously, the goal of these
two new wine categories is to create better, more ageworthy bottles, but I’m
not convinced that things will work out as hoped. The new Riserva wines I have
tried in the last year or so are often overoaked, and once again the poor
quality of the oak is often to blame, with the wines marred by drying green
tannins. Although there are always exceptions, I wonder if increasing the
duration of wood contact is really what Aglianico del Vulture needs. Given the
cost of high-quality oak barrels and the fact that the area’s producers aren’t
exactly fetching Pétrus-level prices for their wines, it doesn’t take a genius
to figure out that this type of investment is financially risky. Another
problem with the new legislation is that it obligates producers who might want
to use the Superiore or Riserva designations to wait until three to five years
after the harvest to begin selling these wines. If you consider, as the legislators
should have, that Basilicata’s best wine, the Elena Fucci Aglianico del Vulture,
is released two years from the harvest, such guidelines would automatically exclude
the region’s best wine from its top wine category.

Aglianico vines at Paternoster

Last but not least, the new legislation
allows for vineyard area designations much like Barolo or Barbaresco’s Menzioni Geografiche Aggiuntive (MGAs), and
this is a commendable idea. But it’s one thing to say Cannubi or Vigna Rionda,
and quite another to say Gelosia or Pian di Croce. Practically nobody – even in
Italy – is aware of where these Vulture-specific vineyard areas are located or
what the wines from each are supposed to taste like. It also doesn’t help that,
much like Barolo’s Bussia for example, these sites are quite large areas and so
are best thought of as districts rather than single vineyards, thereby making
site-specific characteristics of each one harder to pinpoint. I have been visiting
the Vulture regularly for 15 years and have been filing this type of soil and
microclimate information away, but even I have a tough time drawing conclusions
and summing up all the data into a coherent whole. So just imagine how the average
consumer who only visits Italy once in a while might react. Clearly, at this
early stage, it would have been much more useful for everyone concerned if the
Vulture’s wine production area had simply been subdivided by township. So just
like in Barolo, for example, where there are wines of La Morra, Monforte and
Serralunga, so too in the Vulture there could have been wines from Barile,
Venosa and Maschito.

Unfortunately, as is the case elsewhere
in Italy, in the Vulture too there are producers who do not wish to have their
wines identified with a specific area. This is partly the result of a misguided
belief among producers that vineyards planted at the top of the Vulture (near
Barile or Rapolla, for example), where soils are rich in volcanic ash and tufa,
will automatically be considered better than those lower down the slope, for
example around Venosa, where the reddish soils have clearly been less touched
by volcanic lava over the centuries. But much like the wines of Margaux are not
better or worse than Pauillac’s, but rather are different expressions of the Médoc,
the same is true of the regions within Vulture. In my view, it’s a real shame –
and a lost opportunity for everyone concerned – that the local authorities and
the producers have been unable to come to grips with this simple fact.

A vast denomination that
encompasses profoundly different microclimates and soil types is not the way to
create international renown for an area and achieve higher prices, as has been
demonstrated countless times before. A wine labeled Australia will typically
sell for less than one labeled Margaret River, and the same goes for a
Bourgogne Rouge versus a Musigny or Echézeaux. Unfortunately, this situation has
led many of Basilicata’s top estates to opt out of the Aglianico del Vulture
Superiore/Riserva sweepstakes, and that’s a shame. A Basilicata DOCG that some
of the best producers, including Paternoster, Grifalco and Elena Fucci, have
chosen to avoid is missing the mark.

Basilicata vineyards in the winter

Aglianico on the Upswing

Nevertheless,Aglianico del Vulture has the
potential to be one of the world’s noble red wines. Much of this potential is
due to the inherent quality of the Aglianico grape variety, which has too often
been masked by poor winemaking and less-than-ideal cellar techniques. When
carefully made, from reasonable crop levels, and then aged in high-quality oak,
Aglianico del Vulture wines exude enticing aromas and flavors of red cherry, flowers,
licorice, tar and minerals. In fact, their aromas bear a distant resemblance to
those of fine Nebbiolo, even though Aglianico del Vulture is a very different
wine from Barolo in spite of its unfortunate nickname of “the Barolo of the
south.” The best Aglianico del Vulture wines also display smooth tannins and
vibrant acidity and should evolve positively in bottle for a good 15 years or more.

During my most recent visit to
the area last fall, Andrea Piccin of Grifalco probably summed up Basilicata’s
future best: “Our family makes wines in Tuscany too at Salcheto, and those
wines have always sold well,” he told me. “By contrast, our Aglianico del
Vulture never garnered that much interest. But this seems to have changed in
the last three years, as we find more and more people actively asking where
they can buy Aglianico wines. It was never like that before.”

Recent Vintages of Aglianico del Vulture

As it was almost everywhere
else in Italy, the 2015 growing
season was a hot one in Basilicata, but “hot” is a very relative term when
applied to the Vulture, where average daily temperatures are much lower than
those recorded in parts of Sicily or Tuscany, for example. So rather than extreme
heat, 2015 in the Vulture was more affected by unstable, rapidly changing
weather patterns. For example, on the morning of August 15, numerous sections of
the Vulture were seriously affected by a strong hailstorm—a real shame since 2015
had initially looked like an outstanding year in the making. That said, keep in
mind that those areas that escaped the hail unscathed will likely end up making
refined, well-balanced wines of real note.

In contrast, the 2014 vintage was generally poor for the
area’s red wines, as the year’s weather proved just as difficult on the Vulture
as it was elsewhere in Italy. In this very rainy year, not unlike 2016, incidentally.
Repeated passes through the vineyards at harvest and strict selection of
berries were of critical importance. The 2013
growing season brought small crop levels but produced outstanding wines—in my
view, the best Vulture wine since 2008. The ‘13s are fresh, ageworthy and
especially mineral, so seek them out.

The 2012 vintage offered a mixed bag, but the better wines are quite
good. The cold winter that year featured abundant snowfall in January and February,
and that precipitation, coupled with a very rainy spring, built up large water
reserves in the soil that turned out to be necessary later in the summer, which
was sunny and almost too hot and dry, especially in August. September didn’t
see much rain either. Consequently, some 2012 wines are marred by tannins that
are tough and green due to unripe polyphenols, the result of the sudden rise in
temperatures in August. Another problem in 2012 was downy mildew, which had not
been seen in the Vulture for nearly a half century and thus went unrecognized
in many vineyards. Carelessly made wines often betray rot, elevated volatile
acidity or other flaws. Still, the best Aglianico del Vulture wines of 2012 are
remarkably well balanced and ageworthy, while offering more charming, upfront
fleshy fruit than the 2013s, which will require more patience.

The Grifalco brothers in their cellar

As in other Italian wine
regions, 2011 was a very hot and dry
year, spurring many producers to ask the government for permission to irrigate
as a “supportive measure” (irrigation is not normally allowed for Aglianico del
Vulture). Bad wines from 2011 are roasted and tough; while better examples are
plush and silky yet still favor alcohol and power over nuance and grace. As a
general rule, when I have to pick between a good Aglianico del Vulture from
2012 or 2011, I’ll almost always choose the former vintage.

I tasted the following wines in September 2016 and in January and February 2017, during my annual foray in Basilicata tasting the new vintages and verticals while visiting estates, and at my home in Rome.